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Learning from Kanye West: 10 Motivational Thoughts for Creatives

August 26, 2014

Every night, my son watches the same Kanye West collection of interviews which typically means that it’s blasted all over the house at the most annoying of decibals. My son is 15 so of course I took this gesture as a means of annoying every person in the house. This was not a TED talk, afterall, which we tend to associate with “motivation”. This was basically a collection of some of Kanye’s craziest interviews that some youtuber put to music, added visuals and uploaded.

If you are familiar with the legend that is Kanye West at all, you probably guessed that my son has been entranced by the “non-Kanye created”, Kanye’s New Testament. You can read more about it here and here because apparently this was quite the big deal.

Last night, our “Kanye rant” ritual, took a different turn. My son asked me to listen to it. He said…

“Somewhere between the moments that seem crazy are some really deep thoughts. If you actually take the time to listen, you’ll understand why I like listening to this before I try to do something that may seem hard.

Kanye is really a motivating human being. He’s super creative and just wants to create in other ways, outside of music sometimes, but people don’t want to see him do that. He’s frustrated about it.

I like that he decides what he wants to do and he goes for it. He lives on his terms and doesn’t let people’s opinions hold him back. That’s what I hear anyway because I don’t focus on the other stuff. I don’t know what you hear but that’s what I hear.”

Last night, in typical “tech-mom” fashion, I opened my Video Notes Chrome app and tried to get into the mindset of my son. What I found was that beneath all of the “crazy” that seemed to overtake pretty much every Kanye West interview, were quite a few deep motivational thoughts.

So, again, keeping with my “tech-mom” theme, I made a Haiku Deck which interestingly enough, had a nice collection of images fitting each Kanye West motivational thought.

In case you’re wondering…NO I have not lost my mind. This was my way of connecting with my son. Maybe he’s on to something.

1. “I always feel like I can do anything.” – This was my son’s favorite statement. He said that this motivates him to continue to push even when he wants to quit sometimes, For the record, I’ve always told him this but I guess it sounds different coming from Kanye.

2. “The main thing that people are controlled by is their perception of themselves.” – We all have within us the potential to be great but often times, we hold ourselves back because of our own fears and self doubt. Why do we do this?

3. “Create and make mistakes in front of people.” –When you create, nothing is perfect because everything should be a new risk. This is ok. Mistakes are human. We should make these much more and out loud!

4. “Don’t allow yourself to be boxed in to someone else’s idea of who you are.” – Be you no matter what…not who others think you should be.

5. “The time is now to be okay to be great. The time is now to be the greatest you.” – Greatness is within us all. What are we waiting for?

6. “We’re not always in the position we want to be at. We’re constantly growing, making mistakes and actualizing our dreams.” – Growth is about exactly this. We’ll never be exactly where we want to be as long as we are always focused on growing and being better.

7. “I know exactly what I want to do. I know what I’m up against.” – Fight for your dreams regardless of what the world has to say

8. “If you ain’t trying to help me then you’re hurting me.” – For many young males, this idea haunts me.

9. “The time is now to express & for people to believe in themselves.” – Seriously, what are you waiting for? Believe in yourself now and quit waiting on the world to believe in you.

10. “I’m a creative genius and there really is no way to word that. For me to say that I wasn’t a genius…I’d be lying to myself.” – No explanation needed

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Comments 3

Kanye forged his own path and made it. He made people have to listen to him…anytime he had the ear of someone “bigger” than him, he did all he could to be heard. Most wouldn’t listen or believe he could be anything other than a behind the scenes producer. And now…HE’S HERE. And instead of shutting everyone down like peoples once did him, Kanye is doing his best to make paths for the next generation, including your son.

When the media takes things out of context and decide they want to discredit a person or make them irrelevant – you have to take the time to look under the surface (just as you did) and come to your own understanding of what message the person is sending. You looked at the underlying message and recognized that Kanye has motivational messages and a person can learn from him. Why? You took the time to out aside the negativity that surrounds him and look closely. If more people did that we’d have better understandings of one another and maybe, just maybe, we could move forward instead of backwards with the bull@/&$.
Love it as usual Rafranz!